I actually did want the first comment posted : ) Where I talk about Mattson’s book. Please post it at your discretion.

Samira

A few things:

1. Comments are not moderated anymore. The only time a comment will not post automatically is if it contains links. Obviously you were not aware of that so I have deleted your “Not for posting” comments.

2. I’m sure you realize that we know almost nothing about the real lives of many of the people that we “follow”. All we know is that they are said to be “scholars” or “authorities on Islam”. All we know is what an author, speaker, or scholar is said to have done in his or her life. Looking at it logically and without emotion, I think it is easy to see that we don’t know much about anyone that we read/watch/listen to.

3. I am not “quoting” some guy for who he is. I linked to the webpage because I read the entire page and I found the information within the page to be informative, unbiased, and accurate. Unfortunately I do not have the time (or interest) to read someone’s entire website to decide what type of person he/she is. That is why I am not saying “Hey, check this guy out… He knows everything about Islam”… Rather, I am saying “Hey, check out this webpage because it gives more info on what I am talking about in this discussion.” :-)

4. I have come to my own conclusions about certain things in the Qur’an that do not agree with the beliefs of “Qur’an Only” groups in my humble opinion. For example, there is a group of people who believe that The Qur’an contains two fake ayats and that there was a messenger of Allah who was sent to remove those ayats. I will never agree with that belief and so I do not subscribe to that group. There are several “Qur’an Only” groups that believe that hijab is not a requirement in The Qur’an. I believe that hijab is a requirement, so I don’t follow that sect either. And so on.

5. I guess the point is that there are many people out there who are put up on a pedestal and said to be leaders yet we really don’t know anything about them. I am not inferring that anyone who is a “scholar” or “speaker” has participated in anything wrong… But I do know that none of those people are perfect and I can cite an example of someone being very influential in the Muslim community only to turn around and have his true colors revealed when he beheaded his wife. I’m sure you know what I am referring to here.

6. I don’t entirely discount “hadith books”. I look at them as I would look at other historical information: I can take or leave them at my discretion. I don’t follow any particular sect and because Allah said that He wants Islam to be easy for us, I don’t believe that Allah expects me to: a) read every volume of hadith collection by every collector, b) choose which collection is correct (ALL of them have been known to contain more than an error/contradiction or two), c) follow that collection of books along with The Qur’an. Ease is having one book by which you verify things. It is not easy to have volumes of books (which incidentally contradict themselves, each other, and The Qur’an in many instances) to live your faith by.

There are so many verses in The Qur’an that point to only following The Qur’an for religious guidance, and Allah also says that we should not uphold things that we know nothing about. I will no longer uphold volumes of books that I can not verify anything about. I know my view on this is not popular and I am okay with that because I am not here to convince anyone of anything. But if someone wants to convince me that I must follow something for religious guidance, please show me an ayat wherein Allah instructs me to do so. Allah knows best.

All I want to do is try to live my life in the best manner possible and to live a lifestyle that Allah has commanded me to live. I am not perfect and nobody is, and since I can only vouch for the authenticity of The Qur’an, that is all I will follow without question. Anything else will have to make sense in light of Qur’aanic teachings in order for me to follow it and teach it to my daughter.

7. You know my personal email address and my phone number and my physical address (lol)… You can reach me in more ways than by commenting here on the blog. Salam.

There are so many prohibitions that people take from hadith books that Allah never gave to us in The Qur’an and that don’t make sense for us in 2009. There is a reason why those things were not included in The Qur’an — a Book that Allah tells us is our guide, is complete, and that He did not leave anything out of it.

Everything that we follow should be fact-checked by The Qur’an. If it is not justified by The Qur’an, we should leave it alone because it is a major sin to prohibit things that Allah did not prohibit — whether the person was a prophet of God or you and me.

The only book that every Muslim can be 100% sure of is The Qur’an. And just like Allah told Prophet Muhammad, we should judge the information that we come across (in hadith books, books by “scholars”, lectures, etc.) by the information in The Qur’an. If you’d like more information on this see one of the following webpages: http://tinyurl.com/lessonsfromthequran3 or http://marwanboustany.googlepages.com/Lesson3.pdf.

Allah knows best! :-)

The idea was that women were already wearing long, bright, precious garments – but that men started to wear these things to mark themselves off from others as wealthy (e.g. to show off), and so it was disallowed.

Some have argued that following Prophet Muhammad’s (saws) logic about this issue with men that women should also strive not to be ostentatious in their dress (like in Sr. Kima’s hijab checklist where she urges you to ask yourself when you are dressing to think about whether you are doing to to show off or make someone else feel jealous) and in that light should also avoid the same things (silk, bright colors, trailing hems), but the stated focus of the hadiths pertaining to silk are men.

We should also note that times change and so interpretations/rulings can change with them. At the time of Prophet Muhammad (saws) silk was an extremely expensive fabric. Nowadays, silk is often priced the same as fabrics with less cache like cotton and polyester. So, when we see someone wearing a silk garment we don’t assume that they are wealthy because they are wearing it.

The same can be said for dyes – we now have cheap, readily available synthetic dyes. At the time of Prophet Muhammad (saws) bright colors like red and purple were produced through long and costly processes and the clothing dyed with them was correspondingly expensive. Now, when we see someone wearing red, we don’t automatically assume their wealth, as we might have then and so on…

Whereas, nowadays when we see someone wearing obvious designer clothing (though it could be a knock-off), certain kinds of jewelry, sporting a certain kind of cellphone it may have a similar effect to the one Prophet Muhammad (saws) was trying to have Muslims avoid by staying away from the things I mentioned above.

I think it’s important, if we can, to examine the context and history of issues, rulings and the logic behind them. Scholars usually take great care to explain contexts of Qur’an and hadiths and the reasoning behind fatwas. Anyway, just my two cents…